


It Ends Like This

by VoidGhost



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, It Jumps Around a Lot, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidGhost/pseuds/VoidGhost
Summary: walkthegale asks: For the first sentence fic thing, "How does it end?"Or,Caleb writes a book.





	It Ends Like This

**Author's Note:**

> Very fun little thing <3  
> I wrote this after my finals today and I'm feeling good lmao.   
> Hope you all enjoy <3

“How does it end?”

Nott asked him first, way back when, peering over his shoulder as he studiously wrote in a journal that clearly wasn’t his spell book. Small talk as they waited for the crownsguards to pass by again so Nott can pick the lock of their cell. 

He shrugged. He had only written the first four pages so far. “It’ll end when it ends.” 

Nott hummed as a response, just as the guard passed by. Once he rounded the corner, she had her tools out and clumsily slid them in the lock. Caleb shut the book and tucked it safely in his harness, and began prepping for their escape.

“How does it end?”

Jester asked him next, the nosy tiefling with no boundaries. He had been writing at the tavern when Nott caught the eye of the table across from them and their three new acquaintances introduced themselves. 

Caleb wasn’t sure entirely how to explain how he  _thought_ it would end, and he almost admitted it to Jester, who seemed to pull at something familial within him, when another, bright purple tiefling interrupted and the thought was lost. 

“How does it end?” 

Molly had asked on one of their longer trips across the Empire, Kiri in the seat beside him. She mimicked in his cadence, “How does it end?”

Caleb knew how it would end, but he couldn’t say it in front of a child. Instead, he closed the book and secured it with its leather strap. Poking Kiri’s beak, he said, “It ends with a little birdy coming home to her family.” 

Kiri chirped happily, but Molly eyed him with a look that didn’t quite believe Caleb but wasn’t too interested in finding out why. It didn’t matter, anyway. The cart pulled to a stop and the topic was dropped. 

“How does it end?”

He was writing furiously by the late fire and didn’t even know Beauregard was awake. She watched from her cocoon of blankets, bags under her eyes, the sting of loss weighing heavily over them all. Nott was curled into a ball with her back to them but Caleb couldn’t be sure if she was entirely asleep. Keg, however, was snoring the loudest, right beside Nila. 

“It ends the same way everything else does,” He said in a rough whisper. His fingernails still had dirt underneath them. 

Beau didn’t say anything else, and neither of them slept. 

“How does it end?”

Caduceus had asked, long after joining them, on one of their rare, calm nights. The Lavish Chateau had provided them with a meal that rivaled anything Caleb had had in months. He had finished with spell work and moved on to updating his book, which he hadn’t touched in a long time. His last entry was a mess of barely legible Zemnian, some Common, and smeared ink. 

“It’ll end with my death,” Caleb answered honestly, because Caduceus could tell what he was thinking anyway. 

Instead of the expected argument, Caduceus hummed. “Eventually, everything ends in death. I’m not sure if people need stories to remind them of that.” He paused to take a sip of tea. “I don’t think you need to remind yourself of that either, Mr. Caleb.” 

Then he left, and Caleb was alone with his book, his quill in the air as Caduceus’ words echoed in his mind. 

“How does it end?”

Yasha asked quietly, her tone soft but unusually vulnerable. He had been writing below the deck of the ship, seeking peace, especially after the rain began to fall. He was going back and crossing out details of the past few months that he’d rather forget; the sting of jealousy that he kept carefully hidden had influenced his writing, and he put Avantika in a worse light than he intended. Although, a petty part of him wanted to keep his original descriptions, even if it was dishonest. 

Yasha had sat across from him, soaked to the bone, and quietly pulled out her own leather bound journal. He watched while not-watching, as she carefully flipped from page to page of pressed flowers. 

Something had happened, but Caleb couldn’t ask when Yasha was in a state like this. Instead, he said, “I do not know, yet.” 

She nodded, like she understood, and they went back to their books. 

“How does it end?”

Fjord had asked, stunted, a bit of uneasy small talk after Caleb had cornered him in his new room the day before. They were alone at breakfast, and he was nervous, and Caleb had become enchanted by the warlock as of late, though when he looked back on it, it really had been in the works for quite a while. His quill had paused in his mindless writings so he could admire the warm green that colored Fjord’s face.

He could say how he wanted it to end. He could say it ends with a kiss and a promise, cut palm to cut palm, of a partnership that survives fire and ice. He could say it ends with an oddball family, scraped and bruised and beaten, but whole. 

Instead, he says, “In something that lasts, I hope.” 

He doesn’t miss the minuscule nod, or the small smile that briefly passes over Fjord’s face, but especially the dim gold eyes that meet his and says more than can be said. 

Then Nott and her husband enter the room and the moment does not break, but is set aside for now.

“How does it end?”

Yeza startled him out of his thoughts. The house was particularly empty today, with most of their crew out to the market. Yeza wanted to stay behind in the alchemy lab, and Caleb intended to scribe his spells, but got distracted by his own thoughts. 

“If it’s too personal, I apologize,” Yeza continued when Caleb looked up from his journal. 

“Do not worry about it.” Caleb considered closing up the book, but instead dipped his quill into the inkwell. “It is....an autobiography of sorts.” 

Yeza nodded. “I think I read something like that once. Something about adventures. You guys go on a lot of those, you must have a lot to write about.” 

“I suppose.” The adventures he had noted in the book make up almost three quarters of the journal. He had hoped to find a way to wrap this piece up, but the Mighty Nein was not going to settle down anytime soon. 

“If you write about Veth,” Yeza said, hesitantly. “Will you write her as brave? ‘Cause she is, and she deserves to see herself that way.” 

Caleb’s smile softened. He had already written about Nott, and his honest feelings about her - but Yeza raised a question on if he would ever publish such a personal piece. 

He said, “Of course,” and Yeza returned it with a grateful smile. 

“How does it end?”

Caleb hadn’t realized Essik had arrived and found his way to the library of their home until the drow himself was perched over his shoulder, reading along as Caleb wrote. He put the quill down but kept the journal open, despite his every sense telling him to put it away, safe. 

“I will find out,” Caleb said, honestly, and Essik leaned closer, reading the few comments in Common and frowning slightly at the majority of Zemnian. 

“You certainly put in the effort,” Essik noted, and his startling, bright yellow eyes met Caleb’s with a fanged smirk. “I’d like to see that effort put elsewhere, however.” 

Before Caleb could decipher Essik’s odd statements (during their sessions, he often played the game ‘am I being threatened or flirted with’ and it was always a gamble), he caught a silhouette in the door. Looking up, he found another set of eyes watching them, a stony expression that barely restrained the discomfort on Fjord’s face, before he turned and continued down the hall. 

Beside him, Essik said, “Hm. I didn’t know he was still there.” 

-

He asked himself, “How does it end?”

He thought he knew, once. A child dreams of a house on a hill, a ring on his finger, his own kids and his own cat. He dreams he’ll name his cat Frumpkin. 

A teenager dreams of fighting for his country, of flinging spells off his fingertips and watching the Traitors burn from the inside out. No time for marriage, no time for cats or kids. He dreams of doing this for years to come. 

Then for a while he doesn’t dream, doesn’t think. Can only live in the one moment where it felt like all of his dreams were taken away. It felt like dreams were impossible, now. Undeserving. 

A man wakes up and he doesn’t dream, but thinks. Thinks of what could have been, of what dreams he destroyed. He thinks of the only way it could end; in his own death, somewhere in an alley or a ditch, or even worse, in a cell for traitors of the Empire, preparing for his execution. He thinks that’s the only way it couldpossibly end. 

And then a man finds a family that isn’t family at first, only a means to an end, but along the way, his carefully sewn seams give way and he dreams again of a house on a hill, but this time with his oddball group of nobodies that somehow mean everything to him. 

“How does it end?” asks the orphan girl, who is no longer an orphan and hasn’t been for quite some time. 

Caleb props her on his knee, his manuscript on the desk in front of him, his hair shot through with silver (an addition from the last year that he hated, at first) tied back and out of his face. A band made of silver sits on his ring finger, heavy when it was first slipped on but he had gotten used to it over time. His scars were faded but not gone - one in particular stands out, shaped like a willow tree across his back, a mark from their final battle against a wizard poisoning his country, who now rots in an unmarked grave. 

A hand places itself on the desk in front of Caleb, the other sliding along his shoulder. Rough lips with two healthy tusks pecks Caleb’s cheek, before his husband reels back to skim over the translated script. 

“This looks familiar,” Fjord murmurs in his ear, and Caleb leans back against him. 

The little girl huffs impatiently, having been forced to wait this long to hear the adventures of her fathers and her godmothers and her aunts and uncles. Caleb chuckles, running a hand through her hair. 

“You really want to know, little Una?”

She crosses her arms pouts, a look that never failed to make Caleb fold like a deck of cards. He laughs again, kissing her head. 

“Well, it ends like this....” 


End file.
